This article aims to explore the meaning of the notion of the “uncanny” in Nietzsche’s Birth of tragedy. To read today this work is to encounter a text that has preserved intact the force of its philosophical message: man is such only in the alternance and coexistence of health and illness, Apollonian and Dionysian, art and life. The role of Socrates’ philosophy in Nietzsche’s The birth of tragedy, however, needs to be reconsidered. Socrates is also, according to this reading, an (...) “uncanny” figure. This article is dedicated to an analysis of the aesthetical leitmotif of Nietzsche’s philosophy and a comparison between The birth of tragedy and Hoffmann’s Der Sandmann. Topics are the complex relationship between health and illness and the difference between humankind and mechanical robots or automata. (shrink)

The Bells of Sevastopol: On Nietzsche's First Musical Composition. This article offers an interpretation and new dating of Nietzsche’s early musical compositions. These documents – harmony exercises and small compositions – are crucial for understanding the beginning of Nietzsche’s study of music. Of these musical scores, the most interesting is the so-called “melody fragment.” This short “melody” is not simply an adolescent’s attempt to write music; it is instead an interesting document on the intellectual activity of the young Nietzsche during (...) the years of the Crimean War. A comparison of some notebooks of the period reveals similarities that allow us a precise dating. Moreover, this “melody” suggestively recalls the death knell after “the fall of Sevastopol.”. (shrink)

Resumo Este artigo examina um período muito breve da juventude de Nietsche, de seu nascimento a 1862. Durante estes anos Nietzsche descobre progressivamente que o mundo encantado ao interno do qual ele nascera, protegido e seguro, não é imune ao mal e às doenças. Neste estudo examina-se todas as doenças que Nietzsche viu entrar em casa, através do pai, dos parentes e dos amigos. Antes mesmo que sua biografia registrasse patologias que ele carregará consigo até o fim, Nietzsche encontrará as (...) feições do mal nas formas históricas que a sua época registrou deixando marcas indeléveis no seu imaginário.This article examines a very short period of Nietzsche's youth, from his birth to 1862. During these years, Nietzsche gradually discovered that the enchanted world in which he was born, protected and safe, was not immune to evil and disease. This study examines all the diseases that Nietzsche has experienced inside the house, through his father, relatives and friends. Even before his biography recorded pathologies that he would remember ever after, Nietzsche met the face of evil in the historical knowledge that his time recorded leaving indelible traces in his imagination. (shrink)